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How About Semi-Random Uacs?


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#1 Arkroma

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Posted 02 October 2016 - 07:13 AM

Short version: How about giving us semi-random jam chances, which increases as you fire it rather than a flat value?

I know it's not ED, but it's ED related: PGI seems to worry about ACs as ED will put regular ACs even less useful as it is. This is something we should try on PTS to balance UACs without nerfing them to dirt.

While I can live with UACs with constant jamming chances, I do prefer a bit less randomness as the current system doesn't really tell players how far they should push their luck. Also if we want long jam time current system is a bit too frustrating. Don't get me wrong, if anything I prefer longer jams---your enemy can read it from your target information and exploit it, while current (live server) the jam time is too short for that to happen.

So my proposed jamming system will work in 3 stages:

1. "safe"---The initial shots are not going to cause you a jam, fire away!
2. "you are pushing your luck"--after a few shots, jam chances increases with each shot. The idea is to give players a clear warning and choice: if you push it, you may get a punishing jam. Or you can play safe and wait a few seconds for the jam chance to drop back down to safe level.
3. "deserved jam"---Even if the player is a bit lucky, he's still going to get a jam if he keeps firing. This is to eliminates super lucky moments, also gives us more room to mess around with jam chances in stage 2.

For jam chance gauge, we can use the flamer one--or even better a new UI near the cross hair.

Then as we already have these "safe" shots, it is possible to remove the double tap mechanic altogether, making UACs unable to replace regular ACs. Double tap does feel a bit button smashing and in high latency situations it's also a bit buggy--I remember quite a few times I almost had 3 shots out instantly (it could be a visual bug---still a bug).

Pros:
1. making UACs unique (to regular ACs).
2. less frustrating jams--if you get a jam, you deserve it (more or less).
3. more tools to achieve proper balance.
4. retaining the random part of UACs while making it less random overall.
5. possible to remove the double tap mechanic (we can keep it though).
6. adding another benefit for target information.

Cons:
1. more UI elements to watch.
2. UACs could be too reliable when used as burst damage--although they are pretty reliable now.
3. when boating different UACs the jam chance gauge could be a mess.
4. could take a fair amount of resources to happen (comparing to messing around with .xml files).


Now to conclude I must apologise for the lack of graphs and numbers: I believe you nice gentlemen will surely have better ideas about numbers than I do. Also I didn't thoroughly check if someone had similar ideas so pardon me if that is the case. Anyway I do think it could be an improvement over current constant jam chances, if not a bit sketchy. :P

Ideas? Thoughts?

#2 Chuck Jager

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Posted 03 October 2016 - 12:01 PM

This means you have double damage for one ton more and even less of a chance of a jam. Folks already abuse the heat system by doing 2 alphas and then moving. On paper it is lower DPS, but the ratio of exposure to enemy fire to damage dealt and survivability go way up. Folks could do this with the jam chance unless the time frame last 10+ seconds. If the second volley has a reduced chance folks will still complain about RNG, because many people feel that the first shot should include both taps jam free.

For some reason there seems to be a sweet spot to the double tap time frame and the chance for a jam especially on windowed full screen. This is except for the uac5 that was fixed a while ago. I have a feeling this was compiled code that PGI can not use to update the clan uac2,10,20s, but I only know enough to make a guess. Having an automatic second shot would bypass this completely.

Edited by Chuck Jager, 03 October 2016 - 12:07 PM.






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